Future-gazing · offered you valuable insights into some of the exciting opportunities and disruptive innovations that will help shape the future of employee health and wellbeing

Future-gazing: The disruptive forces impacting healthcare at work

Thank you for joining Willis Towers Watson

at the Science Museum in London for the

Health & Benefits Disruption Event.

We hope you enjoyed the day and that the

experts and visionaries we brought together

offered you valuable insights into some of

the exciting opportunities and disruptive

innovations that will help shape the future of

employee health and wellbeing.

This ‘key takeaways’ document summarises

some of the event’s key themes – and has been

prepared to act as a reminder of some of the

thought-provoking messages and insights from

the expert speakers that took to the stage.

Future-gazing: The disruptive forces impacting healthcare at work |

Key takeaways for HR professionals and business leaders


Decentralising and democratising healthcare

“Technological advancements are decentralising and

democratising everything – including healthcare”.

This powerful declaration was made by keynote speaker and

world-renowned futurist, Matthew Griffin.

“One hundred years ago you couldn’t shop online, you

couldn’t transfer money between one bank account and

another, you couldn’t have an online health check, you

couldn’t speak to somebody on the other side of the planet,”

he told a captivated audience.

“Now we’re starting to ask what it means to be a human… …

we are on cusp of a new epoch, and it gets faster from here.”

Indeed, healthcare, according to AXA Marketing and

Innovation Director Gordon Henderson, “has changed more

rapidly in the last two decades, than at any time in the last

2,000 years”.

As technology is enabling people to take greater personal

responsibility for their own health, “doctors, physicians and

surgeons,” he said, “are taking a back seat”.

“ Technological advancements are decentralising and democratising everything – including healthcare.”Matthew Griffin, the Fanatical Futurist and founder and CEO of the 311 Institute


Dr Luke James, Bupa UK Medical Director, highlighted the

burgeoning cost of hospital outpatient appointments and pointed to

a shift away from the traditional healthcare model. He shined a light

on some of the technologies that are at the fore of a healthcare

revolution and a proliferation of remote care.

In a world of wearables and remote diagnostics, he told of patches

that can take rhythm recordings from the heart and of glucose

monitors for diabetes suffers that automatically regulate insulin

pumps. He also talked of the rapid growth in genetic testing.

“With around 75,000 genetic tests currently on the market,” he

said, “we are entering a consumer genetics space that will help to

drive important behavioural changes.”

Griffin pointed out that the science behind an extraordinary,

an unimaginable, future is here and now, giving delegates an

insight into some truly remarkable medical discoveries and

technological innovations.

These ranged from gene editing serums that eradicate

inherited conditions to digital avatars that replicate us on a

cellular level to simplify organ printing; from memory editing

that erases addictions to reversing paralysis using carbon

nanotubes and synthetic nerve cells; from messenger RNA

molecules that can be inhaled to treat cystic fibrosis to

progesterone cocktails to help regenerate limbs.

Few organisations in the world are able to see, let alone comprehend, understand or grasp the furious rate of change that our world is now experiencing, and the deep and broad impacts it has on companies and individuals, but not only do the teams at WTW understand them, they help to drive them and keep their customers at the forefront of the market.

Matthew Griffin, Fanatical Futurist

“ We are entering a consumer genetics space that will help to drive important behavioural changes.”Dr Luke James, Medical Director at BUPA UK


The fourth industrial revolution: tackling the challenges of turbo-charged innovation

Having had to already adapt to the digital disruption of the third

industrial revolution, Phil Hayne, Partner at REBA (Reward &

Employee Benefits Association), told delegates that employers

will now be faced with an even faster rate of change.

An explosion of healthcare technology will lead to hyper-

personalised, preventative, medicine and increased

longevity. This will bring new hurdles to be overcome – from

an aging workforce living with chronic conditions to a

widening healthcare gap, increasing pressures on the NHS

and employees brought up in an all-new socio-economic

environment.

Faced with such unprecedented change, “wellbeing,” he said,

will be key for employers to “developing a positive culture”.

He predicted that this year “we’re going to see a massive

increase in company boards driving wellbeing and positive

cultures at work”. This, he emphasised, “offers a great

opportunity for HR to take a seat at the top table and help

drive these agendas.”

“ We’re going to see a massive increase in company boards driving wellbeing and positive cultures at work.”Phil Hayne, Partner at REBA (Reward & Employee Benefits Association)


As healthcare and the workplace

changes, Kevin Newman, Head of

Health and Benefits GB at Willis

Towers Watson, also challenged

employers to consider how their

benefits and total reward strategies

are designed, financed and delivered

to ensure they’re keeping pace.

He explained how employees of the

future will engage with their benefits

in a very different way to how they

have in the past

“Technology and human intervention

combined”, he said, “will have an

important role to play in helping

employees navigate and get real

value from their benefits packages.”

He then explained the key role that

Willis Towers Watson play in the

increasingly crowded and complex

health technology sector, that being

to “help our clients distinguish the

transformational from the trendy”.

“That’s transformational in terms of

increasing employee engagement

with their health, controlling

healthcare costs and also improving

the health risk management of the

workforce,” said Kevin.

“ Technology and human intervention combined will have an important role to play in helping employees navigate and get real value from their benefits packages.”Kevin Newman, Head of Health and Benefits GB at Willis Towers Watson


Fostering healthy behaviours and establishing an environment for change

Speaking about the current momentum around mental

health, clinical psychologist and CEO of Unmind, Dr Nick

Taylor, likened it jogging, which was alien to the pre-1970s

generation but quickly became entrenched in society.

“It is now talked about so often, it is part of our everyday

narrative,” he said.

Dr Taylor said businesses are ‘desperate’ to reduce

the impact of mental ill-health, with the cost to the UK

economy now reaching £37bn a year.

A preventive habit-forming approach, he said, is needed,

which makes mental health an integral part of everyday

life, just as dental health currently is.

“Digital is essential for prevention,” he said. “It is scalable,

affordable, offers personalized care, is available 24/7 in

this ever-moving world, and can sign-post other services,

lifting the mystery that exists around mental health

services. Digital can become the toothbrush to the mind.”

“ Digital is essential for prevention It is scalable, affordable, offers personalized care, is available 24/7 in this ever-moving world, and can sign-post other services, lifting the mystery that exists around mental health services. Digital can become the toothbrush to the mind.”Dr Nick Taylor, CEO of Unmind and clinical psychologist


Another top workplace health issue that could

benefit from a proactive, practical approach is sleep

disruption, said Christina Friis Blach Petersen, co-

founder of LYS Technologies.

Like mental health, sleep deprivation has huge financial

implications for businesses, costing the UK economy

around £45bn each year.

Research has revealed that light is the most

influencing factor on the sleep-wake cycle, and the rise

of urbanization is significantly impacting this.

“We really need to understand how we can make

indoor environments more human-centric and how

we can maintain a healthy day and night cycle,” said

Petersen.

In the future, highly-personalized light diets, prescribed

following detailed digital tracking and monitoring,

could help drive behavioural changes, aided by building

adaptations that focus not just on aesthetics, but on

the health and wellbeing of the occupants.

This harnessing of technology to manage behaviour was a

common theme of the TED-style talks, with Vitality director Greg

Levine saying technological advances are facilitating a “new wave

of the monitored self”.

Encouraging people to be active should be a starting point, said

Greg, as exercise not only has a positive impact on the physical

being but makes people more likely to adopt other healthy

behaviours, such as good diet.

Incentivising healthy behaviours, such as through reward

schemes, gives people the right ‘nudge’ to not only initially

participate, but to make significant changes to their activity levels

over a prolonged period. It also helps reach those who have been

traditionally hard to engage with, such as inactive people with

high BMIs.

“The key to sustainability is having a pragmatic approach, in

terms of how you incentivise, reward and drive that very difficult

challenge of human behaviour,” said Levine.

Christina Friis Blach Petersen, co-founder of LYS

Greg Levine, Director of Sales and Distribution at Vitality


And preventative action is not limited to fitness.

Michael Perlmutter, Health Imagination leader

at Willis Towers Watson, said that health risk

factors associated with non-communicable

diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, can

be controlled and managed through lifestyle

intervention.

He said that it’s widely accepted that prevention

is significantly less expensive than treatment

and that there needs to be a move away from

expensive, capital intensive hospital centric

interventions towards a system that relies more

on consumers.

“Our Human Centric Health project, with the

World Economic Forum looks at the social

determinants of health and how behavioural

economics can help to unlock very simple

actions that people can take to improve their

lifestyle,” he said.

He also spoke of the ‘uber-isation’ of healthcare, and how emerging technologies are disrupting

and transforming how healthcare is delivered, from ordering GP home visits and digital ‘daily mood

checkers’ to ‘triaging’ chatbots.

Consumers are starting to accept the idea that healthbots can be used to automate, improve, and

simplify routine tasks that impact our time, lifestyle, and everyday wellbeing. The goal: to avoid

the need for treatment in the first place by passively collecting, transmitting, and storing health

information as an individual goes about daily life.

To reach this potential, the focus needs to be on ‘getting the basics right’: the digital architecture

of the health and care system. The user experience is paramount, said Michael, as is having open

standards, privacy, and ensuring that systems talk to each other and that the right data gets to the

right place at the right time.

“We have to create the eco-system, we have to create the environment that enables these types of

pilots to take hold,” he added.

“ Our Human-Centric Health project, with the World Economic Forum, looks at the social determinants of health and how behavioural economics can help to unlock very simple actions that people can take to improve their lifestyle,”Michael Perlmutter, Health Imagination leader at Willis Towers Watson


A look to the future

Willis Towers Watson are working with futurists,

technology disruptors, insurers and health tech

innovators to ensure that our clients are aware of

the developments in a rapidly evolving health and

wellbeing landscape. Especially one where it is

increasingly challenging to determine what is truly

‘transformational’ rather than ‘trendy’.

If you would like to find out more about the content

at the event from our speakers or 20 exhibitors and

how this will help inform the decisions you make as

you modernise your benefits programmes, please

get in touch.

Mark RamsookDirector

[email protected]

Documents

Future-gazing · offered you valuable insights into some of the exciting opportunities and disruptive innovations that will help shape the future of employee health and wellbeing